Anarchists, Secessionists, and the Grey Tribe: Where We Conflict
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In a perfect world, there would be a federation of anarchist organizations, representing many kinds of political and cultural groups with a generally anti-authoritarian orientation (a libertarian Grey Tribe in opposition to the various forces of statism, totalitarianism, imperialism, militarism, corporatism, and fascism). Further, the overarching strategic outlook for the anarchist-Grey Tribe would be pan-secessionism (a kind of contemporary version of the classical anarchist notion of the general strike). It is indeed probable that a relatively unified anti-state force will need to emerge at some point if the enemy is to be effectively combated and overthrown.

However, it is also true that there is also a great deal of division between and among anarchists, libertarians, Grey Tribers, and secessionists. For example, a large majority of anarchists are cultural leftists while a significant percentage of the much larger Grey Tribe are right-wingers or social conservatives. And many serious libertarians, not to mention Grey Tribe sympathizers, are neither anarchists nor secessionists. Likewise, there are many fellow travelers of the Grey Tribe who have a foot in either the Red Tribe, Blue Tribe, or some other tribe. How can a coherent much less cohesive movement emerge from such an array of contradictory and often hostile opinions?

It needs to be remembered that we are not yet at the stage where a united revolutionary front is necessary. An effort of this kind may be necessary in the future as the moment approaches when the ruling class desperately seeks to maintain its position and unleashes repression. But that particular stage in the struggle is likely a very good distance into the future.

In the meantime, it is sufficient that different resistance tendencies grow independently of each other even if they remain bitterly opposed to one another in many instances. For example, as anarchist movements grow on a macro-level, many of these will no doubt be very much in conflict with each other on the micro-level. The current rivalries between anarcho-communists and anarcho-capitalists, leftist-anarchists and national-anarchists, anarcho-syndicalists and anarcho-primitivists may actually intensify. So will the conflicts that have been observed between vegetarians and vegans, feminists and the transgendered, anarchist people of color and crustpunks. anarcha-femnists and critics of “call out culture,” and many others. However, the pan-anarchist paradigm that ATS aims to advance is primarily concerned with the sum total of the growth of anarchist movements taken as a whole, and not sectarian or issue-based rivalries that may exist between them. As anarchists movements grow to include hundreds of thousands or millions of people, these kinds of antagonisms may only increase, including public brawls and street fights between antifa anarchists and anarcho-nationalists, primitivists and technophiles, vegans and carnivores, feminists and male homosexuals, and many other such divisions.

A similar process may unfold among the wider libertarian-leaning Grey Tribe. There will likely be intense rivalries between thick and thin libertarians, religious and atheist libertarians, left and right libertarians, Red Tribe and Blue Tribe libertarians, racist and anti-racist libertarians, brutalist and humanitarian libertarians, anarchist and minarchist libertarians, pro-life and pro-choice libertarians, and, perhaps most significantly, secessionist and anti-secessionist libertarians.

As secessionist movements grow, there will likely be both anarchists and libertarian Grey Tribers who are opposed to secession for any number of reasons, e.g. contending cultural values, economic questions, foreign policy differences, patriotism, concerns about stability, and other things. There will also likely be rival camps of secessionists who disavow each other, or disavow the libertarians, or disavow the anarchists.

This is not to mention the vast array of single issues (from immigration to capital punishment to legalizing polygamy to religious liberty vs gay rights) that will prove to be highly controversial as these movements collectively grow.

None of this by itself is particularly problematic from the perspective of the ARV-ATS philosophy, meta-political outlook, or meta-strategy. Our ambition should be to grow all anarchist, libertarian, anti-statist, decentralist, anti-authoritarian, anti-corporatist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist and regionalist movements until all of these collectively become a substantial political majority. We should likewise seek to grow our various strategic and tactical concepts such as pan-secessionism, core demographic theory, fourth generation warfare, anarcho-populism, inside/outside strategy, the left-right-center tripartite strategy, pan-anarchist federations, third-party alliances, alternative infrastructure, the 25 point platform, building coalitions of anti-state interest groups, a peoples’ economic front, legal defense organizations, civilian defense organizations, identitarian organizations, regionalist movements, and a free nations coalition. We should grow these strategic ideas until a majority of radical and opposition groups are using them.